The New York Rangers look for their first win of the season in Montreal, taking on the winless Canadiens. They will do it without Ryan Strome in the lineup, but they are getting Sammy Blais back from an injury. They are taking on a battered Montreal team that is very different from the team that took the Lightning to five games in the Stanley Cup Final.
The Rangers want to be this year’s version of the Canadiens, a surprise team that makes a deep run into the playoffs. While the Final may be a bit much to ask for, the expectation is for a Blueshirts is a postseason berth and they need to start winning starting tonight.
As usual, Coach Gerard Gallant didn’t volunteer any information about the starting lineup after the morning skate, but Filip Chytil was on a line with Artemi Panarin and Kaapo Kakko. Kakko also practiced with the first power play unit. Adding a lefty shooter to the first PP unit could help a power play that is one for nine so far this season.
Projected starting lineups
Although Greg McKegg was called up to replace Ryan Strome, it looks like a second straight start for Julien Gauthier on the third line with Barclay Goodrow at center. Strome has been an iron man, missing only one game in the last four seasons. This is the first game he will miss since coming to the Rangers in a November 2018 trade with Edmonton.
This will be Igor Shesterkin’s first start against the Canadiens and Alexis Lafrenière’s first game in his hometown. Sammy Blais and Julien Gauthier are also from Quebec Province so this game has special meaning for them as well.
NEW YORK RANGERS
13 Lafrenière – 93 Zibanejad – 20 Kreider
10 Panarin – 72 Chytil – 24 Kakko
91 Blais -21 Goodrow – 12 Gauthier
29 Hunt – 17 Rooney – 75 Reaves
55 Lindgren – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8 Trouba
12 Nemeth – 27 Lundkvist
31 Shesterkin
40 Georgiev
Seven players who started Game Five of the Stanley Cup Final in July are not in the tonight’s lineup for the Canadiens. Meanwhile, two Lightning players will be facing each other in Goodrow for the Rangers and Savard for the Habs.
MONTREAL CANADIENS
40 Joel Armia -14 Nick Suzuki – 22 Cole Caufield
92 Jonathan Drouin -28 Christian Dvorak – 17 Josh Anderson
73 Tyler Toffoli – 71 Jake Evans -11 Brendan Gallagher
85 Mathieu Perreault -13 Cedric Paquette – 62 Artturi Lehkonen
27 Alexander Romanov – 26 Jeff Petry
8 Ben Chiarot – 58 David Savard
77 Brett Kulak – 20 Chris Wideman
34 Jake Allen
35 Sam Montembeault
How to watch and the live conversation
The game will start at 7pm and the telecast will be on MSG Network with the radiocast on ESPN 98.7 FM. Nationally, the game will be live streamed on ESPN+.
Blue Line Station will be hosting its live in-game conversation using the comments feature below. We’ve had some issues with the comments refreshing and are working on that, so please bear with us. One workaround is to change how the comments sort from “newest” to “oldest” and back to “newest” again.
Bugs aside, there will be a lot of story lines to talk about during this game. Feel free to join in and comment below.